BWLD Drops 6%: Q4 Revenue Beats, EPS Misses

By Tiernan Ray

Shares of Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) are down $3.65, or almost 5%, at $77.42 after the company this afternoon reported Q4 revenue that topped consensus but missed on the bottom line, citing rising costs.

Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 38%, year over year, to $303.8 million, yielding EPS of 90 cents.

Analysts had been modeling $293 million and 96 cents.

CEO Sally Smith noted the 38% rise in revenue and same-store sales growth of 5.8% at its owned restaurants, but added that “High cost of sales continued in the fourth quarter, offsetting some of the bottom-line benefit of the fourteenth week, resulting in net earnings growth of 22.3% for the fourth quarter and 13.6% for the year.”

For this year, the company sees net earnings growth of 25%. Smith said same-store sales are difficult to compare in the current quarter because of the off-set with last year in the sporting event calendar:

As we begin 2013, our same-store sales are challenging to interpret, as sporting events do not align due to the 53rd week in 2012. Through the first six weeks of the first quarter of 2013, same-store sales are (2.8%) at company-owned restaurants and (1.7%) at franchised locations. However, if we calculate our same-store sales to align the timing of the college and NFL football seasons for both years, we estimate our same-store sales would be 2.6% at our company-owned restaurants and 1.6% at franchised locations. We also note that same-store sales increases in the first six weeks of 2012 were particularly high at 12.9% at company-owned restaurants and 10.8% at franchised locations.

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